Ever wondered about water cooling your PC? Well, wonder no more. AlmostThere will show you everything you need to know about water cooling. Link : Understanding & Mastering Water Cooling
Not to bad of a article, but you can really tell that someone is totally against lowflow pre-made kits. But everyone is entitled to their opinions I guess.
Well, the reason is if the water cooling kit cannot perform better than an air cooler, it would be cheaper and better to just use an air cooler instead.
There are numorous kits out there that perform tons better than air, even Thermaltake and Cooler Master as the article referd to. Even the little AquaGate Minis perform slightly better than air coolers at a lower noise point and provide a larger buffer for OC'ing, I've used them in the past, I've run just about all of them through my systems from the Big Water through the Cooler Masters to Alphacool to Swiftech at one time or another and they all have their place depending on what type of system you're running. My son still is running a TT Big Water in his old Athlon XP rig and is still getting better performance out of it than when I had the TT Big Typhoon in the rig. You just have to plan and install it to take advantage of proper air flow and case cooling.
The article just seems to be putti ng down certain types of kits and IMO shouldn't be, they have their place in the world. They may not perform as well as something that I put together myself, but they do the job for what they were intended. ............
I don't think they can outperform high end air coolers like Thermalright's and some of the tower heatpipe coolers.
Some of the kits that I reviewed for System Cooling before they shut down, performed much better than air cooling. Not all will, but there are a lot of Eurouean low flow kits that will smoke any air cooler, plain and simple. On the other hand, there are air coolers out there, when combined with the right fan, will out perform a lot of poorly put together high flow water rigs, I see it all the time. So basicly what I'm getting at is, do not rule out any product JUST because it comes as a kit. Remember that Swiftechs TOP performing parts are also in the form of a KIT and a Pre-installed system in a case...........
There's always going to be some risk when using a water cooling system, but when used with qualitly components and installed correctly with the proper precautions, you can greatly cut down the risks, but there will always be some. As with anything man-made product, nothing is error free and you will have something fail. The trick is to try and catch the faulty parts before powering up your system......... I've been lucky I guess.
Wow, you were from Systemcooling? Damn, should have known! I guess I shouldn't challenge your knowledge... What happened to them? Yes, Swiftech kit is definitely better than the best air cooler, of course. I agree, some kits are very good, especially those from the Europes or US, but not the Taiwans or Chinas...
I couldn't agree more. Some of the cheaper water cooling solutions available are all just gimmicks. To actually get cooling better than air coolers, only much higher ranges of water cooling kits can do the job.
We updated the article Ever wondered about water cooling your PC? Well, wonder no more. AlmostThere will show you everything you need to know about water cooling. Link : Understanding & Mastering Water Cooling
There are a few things I don't really understand... Page 5, tubings: True, but don't over-do it! - If inpingement type blocks are in use the flow resistance caused by the tubes is negligible. - Bends cause turbulence (restriction) no matter if the tube is kinked or not. The sharper the bend the more turbulence. Seems highly improbable to me, unless shortening the tubes caused secondary effects like improved air flow at the radiator or so! (Or your measurements weren't properly made.) Page 5, reservoir: What's the point of using thick and short tubing if you're going to put this type of restriction in the loop? Making sure that the inlet is well below the water surface should be enough, as long as it isn't too close to the outlet (a known problem with the reservoir from Asetek). /Olle
The foam or sponge is supposed to break the speed of the water flowing into the reservoir. I don't think it will have any effect on the loop itself, as the water would have already left the tubing.
You can't reduce the water speed without either "plugging" the tube or have the flow spread over a larger area. I read this as the sponge is to be mounted like a filter or thin plug that covers the opening. Then it will reduce the flow. /Olle
The point is he's reducing the speed of the water falling out of the barb. It's like breaking or smoothing out the fall of water from a pipe by wrapping sponge or foam around the end of the pipe. The speed at which the water exits the pipe remains the same. Only that the wrappings function as a sort of soft extension to the pipe, breaking up the pressured flow (out of the pipe) and reducing the height of water falling into the reservoir.
